Review
Kaada
Closing Statements

Whimsical
/ˈhwɪm·zɪ·kəl, ˈwɪm-/
adjective
Unusual and alluring. Using imagination in a playful manner.

This is admittedly, not a word that would typically be used to describe an album written around final moments before death, but somehow, in the hands of John Erik Kaada, it becomes more apropos with each listen. Closing Statements is about those final words, breaths and thoughts but remarkably eschews the melancholy and sorrow for the languid and serene.

There’s a synergy at work here as with the music from all great composers, with a melding of dreamy electronica, lush orchestral strings, and a wordless chorus of voices that together become much, much more than the sum of their parts.

As with most of Kaada’s work, it’s the vivid pictures that his music creates that makes it an album to listen to. 
To listen to. 
Not something to have on in the background while you wash dishes. Not something “mellow” to have on while you’re writing a report. This is not music to multitask to. This is music created to create. 

Closing Statements’ opening statement is “It Must Have Been the Coffee”, a surreal meditation that would sound just as beautiful with solo piano as it does with the cello and accompanying strings. Yes, there is a sadness here, but not an all-encompassing one. There’s also a sense of hope among the smell of lilies. This carries on through compositions like “Everything Is An Illusion” and “Clearing Out”. Giving not so much a sense of death, but of a sense of rebirth.

Throughout his career, Kaada has made it very clear that he will not be defined by any one album or project, whether as a solo artist, collaborating with Mike Patton, or with his long-running band Cloroform. Closing Statements furthers that mission - driving home the idea that composing great music isn’t about giving the listener what’s never been heard, but giving them a reason to stop what they’re doing, and hear for the first time how truly inspiring music can be when we drown out the extraneous noise.